Deadline Looms for Victims of Required DPT Immunizations

States News Service

Published: January 20, 1991

WASHINGTON—
QUIETLY stacking up in huge boxes at a court building a short distance from the White House are thousands of petitions representing a sad minority among an otherwise healthy majority of citizens.

The claims are from the families and guardians of the disabled, dysfunctional and deceased. Some are pleas from those who suffered nothing more than a tense 48 hours listening to their baby's high-pitched screams. Others are testaments to longtime ordeals.

They come from people like the Stasis of Glen Cove, whose identical twins began having seizures within hours after receiving DPT vaccination.

Nineteen years later, a lifetime of grand mal seizures has left both girls physically and mentally handicapped. One, Gina, has the mental capacity of a 6-year-old. The other, Annamaria, is blind and bedridden, with the functional abilities of an infant. Law Passed in 1986

The Stasis and the others are suing the Government for damages for the deaths and injuries they say resulted from the vaccinations this nation requires for schoolchildren.

Under legislation intended to settle thousands of claims, the last day for people who might want to sue is Jan. 31.

Behind the law, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Compensation Act of 1986, is the premise that mandatory vaccinations have virtually wiped out epidemics of diseases like measles, polio and whooping cough -- but at a cost.

The law focuses on injuries from vaccines for diphtheria, pertussis, or whooping cough, and tetanus, which is known by the combined name of DPT; measles, mumps and rubella, and polio.

Physicians and pharmaceutical companies have long argued against any cause-and-effect between the vaccination and such reactions. But in 1986, the Government officially recognized a pattern when it set up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

The program's goal was to not only make it easier to obtain help, but also to protect vaccine companies against huge damage awards. Lawyers' fees are limited to $30,000.

The volume of claims grew from a trickle to 2,600 in the last week of September; 500 had been expected in the month before the original Oct. 1 deadline.

Because of contentions that the program had not been sufficiently publicized, the deadline was extended until Jan. 31.

Of the 3,400 claims received so far, most are believed to be connected to the pertussis bacteria part of the vaccine. Toxins in the bacteria are known to cause high fever, convulsions, brain damage and death in rare cases.

"Any chemical product, because it is a chemical substance, does produce some side effects," said Craig Engesser, a spokesman for Lederle Laboratories in Wayne, N.J., one of the largest producers of the immunization.

"The current vaccine, as far as we are concerned, is a very safe and efficacious vaccine."

British statistics frequently used by officials show that 1 in 110,000 DPT shots given to children results in neurological side effects and that 1 in 310,000 shots will cause permanent brain damage.

"When you think that most children get three to five doses of DPT, the chances of problems are pretty good," said Janet Ciotoli, founder of the New York chapter of Dissatisfied Parents Together.

Among the claimants are Robert and Elisabeth Rollick, a police officer and teacher from Farmingville, who saw their only child paralyzed after his DPT shot. They had genetic counseling before trying to conceive another baby.

Many years later, Mrs. Rollick gave birth to a little girl in perfect health, until she suffered seizures after her DPT shot. Now, she too, is aspastic paraplegic, diagnosed with brain damage and in need of constant care.

"I was a high-risk older mother, 35 years old, with high-blood pressure," said Mrs. Rollick, an English teacher at West Smithtown Senior High School. "So we did everything right, constantly consulting with the doctors. I was under such close monitoring, I knew I was pregnant two weeks after conception."

Born at University Hospital six weeks prematurely, Richard received a clean bill of health from a team of doctors.

"Believe me, they checked him from stem to stern, even the ophthamalogist, who found Ricky's sight to be normal," said Mrs. Rollick, who added that the infant continued to grow normally and was sitting up and looking at objects. Then came his second DPT shot around the age of 6 months.

"After the shot, he shrieked nonstop. We held him 24 hours a day. But something went wrong," said his mother, who noted that Ricky had also reacted, but less severely, to the first shot.

In the next months no reason was given for Ricky's worsening condition, only new diagnosis after new diagnosis: spastic quadriplegia, cerebral palsy and, eventually, blindness. "One doctor just told me, 'Your child is a vegetable,' " she recalled.

Communicating yes or no with bare motions of his hand, Ricky, now 8, has little other control over his body. Other Birth Problems

"If he makes a motion, like bite a sandwich, his legs cross, sometimes even bringing them out of the socket," she said. "He screams at night because the muscles and nerves contract abnormally and it causes him pain," said Mrs. Rollick, who said her son had slept all night two times in the last eight years.